


Breath

by TrueEffy23



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Healing, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-09 21:45:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18646705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrueEffy23/pseuds/TrueEffy23
Summary: Eighth year. Harry and Draco are back at Hogwarts, but both are struggling to move on from the events of the war. Just friendship rn but maybe they'll become more eventually, I haven't decided.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own the Harry Potter universe or any of the characters.

Chapter 1  
He wasn’t sure why he agreed to return. He knew he didn’t belong there with the people who had fought on the right side, people who hadn't been Death Eaters, who hadn’t nearly been shipped off to Azkaban. Yet when his mother begged him, he felt he had no choice but to agree. After all, they were incredibly lucky to have retained ownership of most of their property and avoid Azkaban. So he reluctantly consented, and he stood by and watched as people were consulted and plans made. He stood by as his trunks were packed and as his mother sent him to the station alone, as she was under house arrest indefinitely. Of course there was little protection to be offered anywhere to anyone unfortunate enough to possess the name Malfoy after the events of the war, So Hogwarts was perhaps the same as any place he may go. He took a deep breath, I’m only here to finish my education, nothing more. Once I have I can make some use of myself . His family had paid much of their fortune in reparations following the war, so he would need to soon find some gainful employment somewhere. If anyone will hire the youngest Death Eater. Then, with a sudden flash of anger, _I didn’t know. I was a child and they told me it was an honor and I didn’t know!_ But just as quickly the image of blood dripping down onto the manor’s table and a woman's pleading cries brought forth a surge of self-hatred. So long as he kept his head down and passed his classes he could get out of here. Out of this country, out of this goddamn life. On his way to the train a flash of black hair distracted him. He turned and hurried away.

                                                                                                                        ***

So this was life after you’d apparently fulfilled your destiny. He wasn’t really sure what he was doing here. It was just assumed he would return. He supposed he had been carried here by some sort of inertia. What he had once wanted and dreamed he no longer yearned for. He didn’t want to an Auror, but here he was studying to be one. There had been some controversy in Hogwarts reopening, as many people believed that it was too soon after the battle, but McGonagall had insisted that Hogwarts must return to its purpose of educating because of all that had been lost. He had stood shoulder to shoulder with other survivors after the battle, spent hours, days, weeks piecing together that which remained, fixing the damage as best they could. It was not yet complete, but it was apparently enough for the castle to remain open. The school year was starting a month late, which left an empty month. A month in which he was expected to grieve and move on, yet found he could not. Now he found himself attending Hogwarts one last year. The Prophet had done an article about the students returning to Hogwarts to complete their education, and one of the questions they’d asked was “why are you returning?” there were so many ways to answer the question. Some said they were attempting to gain some semblance of normality in their lives, some wanted to have a final year to see and be seen, to somehow validate their own existence in the wake of the tragedy. Others, those not directly involved, were curious. Some just wanted to fish their education and get on with their lives. He could see them in his mind’s eye, a group of desperate survivors, flocking to a place where they hoped to find answers, a home, a new beginning. However, he knew the truth. They weren’t going to find themselves. They would find nothing but the remnants of war. There was a shadow stalking them all, and only he knew the truth of its existence. He knew this, and yet in some deep corner of his mind he felt that same glimmer of hope. The hope that he would walk into the Great Hall and be filled with the same sense of wonderment and contentment that he once had. Yet sitting between Ron and Neville he found he felt what he had feared he would always feel: empty.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a really short chapter and it's only Draco's perspective so I apologize! Happy reading!

Draco stared up at the castle with an all consuming sense of dread as the carriage approached it. The journey had begun with some sadness due to the number of student who could now see the thestrals and as a result they had started out late. He was curled in the corner of the carriage, trying to maintain as much space between himself and his companions as possible. He wondered if he could ever have guessed that the majority of the house would forsake him, and he’d be sharing a carriage with Luna Lovegood, Neville Longbottom and Terry Boot.  Despite the months she’d spent imprisoned in his house, Luna seemed to have forgiven him. She’d greeted him with a small smile, more reserved than her typical self, but she had been through hell. The carriage bumped to a stop and he allowed the others to disembark before him, lagging behind as they joined the survivors of the war, survivors from the _right_ side. He noticed one figure who also hung back from the camaraderie, Harry Potter. He had the urge to approach him, ask him why he had testified in his behalf, kept both him and his mother from Azkaban. He had been resigned to his fate, sitting in the courtroom, offering no defense, waiting for the law to send him away. Then, the door opened and in stowed Harry Potter, hero extraordinaire. Draco had assumed he had merely come to watch his old nemesis’s sentencing, yet instead he took the stand and defended him. Now, in front of the steps of Hogwarts their eyes met for just a second, and Harry raised a single hand in greeting before turning and following his friends inside.

***

Harry sat at the Gryffindor table the first morning back with Ron and Hermione, attempting to relax and ignore the empty, bitter feeling that encompassed him. He attempted to hype himself up, convince himself that he was excited over school, that he made the right choice, but as he consulted his schedule and stood up, intending to depart for History of Magic, he felt no more excitement than he did when he was offered a fast track to auror training without finishing school. Thankfully his friends were in his first class, and could push past the crowd of students eagerly wanting to gawk at and talk to The Boy who Lived and Defeated Voldemort. Shoving his way through the throng of excited students with Ron at his side and Hermione in front of him, he recalled the days when he was just as excited as they were. When the school year couldn’t come fast enough. When the House Cup and Quittage were so important. When he was naught but a happy boy, eager and innocent and interested by the world around him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the steaming pile of shit that was my second chapter. The next one I wrote a while ago so it's better, but I felt I needed to flesh out the world a little bit because it takes place several months into the school year.


	3. Chapter 3

Life moved sluggishly around him. The few people who would speak civilly to him were, for the most part, taking different classes and doing different things. He didn’t really mind because most of the time the effort it took to force his mouth to move, to shape words, much less the energy required to think of something to say, was unattainable. The world was, in many ways, a neverending grey blur. Each morning he awoke early from nightmares and ate an early breakfast alone. Then he returned to his dormitory until his classes started. When he attended classes that is. He was good about it at first, but with each passing day caring and trying was becoming progressively harder. He would sit, absent, unaware, as his professors spoke and his classmates laughed. He walked down the corridors staring at the floor, scarcely hearing the taunts behind him  _ that’s right, he was the youngest Death Eater and he waits for his Death Eater pals to be released from Azkaban so they can attempt to decimate the Muggle born population again. Hey Draco! Are you off to kill some mudbloods?  _ The word was expressed with such savage delight that it nearly gave him pause, yet ultimately he continued on as expressionlessly as ever. He never lifted his head, never acknowledged them in any way. Time was passing, his professors pulling him aside to inquire about the homework he never did, the classes he rarely attended. His mother wrote often, letters filled with badly disguised worry. His responses were false, full of forced cheer and blatant lies. Perhaps he should be upset that he was lying to everyone, even himself, but he wasn’t sure he cared. He wasn’t sure he was even real. He felt as if he were slowly disappearing, losing more and more of himself every day. He had no will to do more than simply exist. 

***

He was perfectly still in his chair, his back rigid and his mind distant. Staring into the sooty grate, mulling over everything. The nightmares he struggled to keep at bay during the day knew no boundaries at night. He was exhausted, tired of waking up with the names of the dead on his lips, yet so aware that he was lucky to have made it when so many did not. The first months of school had passed in a quiet, unassuming manner. He knew what would soon happen. Sure enough, several minutes passed before he heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Ron sit gingerly in the chair beside him. Harry didn’t ask him why he was awake because he already knew. It was the same reason he was awake, the same reason many of their classmates walked around the school as if they were balancing on glass, as if the slightest noise could wake the ghosts which stirred there. Some mornings they walked together, Harry, Ron and Hermione. Sometimes they talked, but other times they didn’t need to. They simply knew. Hermione, fully dressed, emerged from the girls staircase She appeared to have been crying, which generally meant she had talked to Ginny.

Ginny’s anguish and despair at Fred’s death was deep. She had retreated into herself, barely talking, scarcely eating. The only thing she seemed to be able to focus on was Quidditch. The only instance in which anyone had heard her speak for an extended period of time was when she announced, quite abruptly, that she was not returning to finish her education, and was instead joining a Quidditch team. Despite Mrs. Weasley’s vehement protestations, she refused to change her mind and had left several weeks before they had returned to school. She and Harry haven't communicated in some time, and he suspected they would never rekindle their relationship. Hermione and George were the only people with whom she regularly conversed, and the conversations generally revolve around the dead and resulted in many tears. Harry and Ron knew better than to ask, they merely inquired whether she was hungry or not.

They walked down to the Great Hall together in the dawn light to find it was not empty as they expected. There was a single figure hunched over a bowl at the Slytherin table. Draco Malfoy. His hands were shaking quite violently as he attempted to eat his oatmeal. Sitting at the Gryffindor table, the trio observed him until he eventually gave up and departed. 

“I feel sorry for him, slimy git he’s always been.” Ron said as soon as his robes had whipped out of sight.

Harry left a deep loneliness at the statement, but his only response was “The war’s changed you, Ron. There was a time when you’d rather kiss the giant squid than express pity towards Malfoy. ”

A brief but true smile appeared on Ron’s lips before he said sadly, “The war’s changed us all”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this, it'll be a bit before I update again probably, since I have a paper due tomorrow and a lot of work in the next week.


	4. Chapter 4

It was becoming a thing now, somehow. Him, bloody Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger breakfasting early. They never talked, only sat and ate. He sat at the table next to them at potions too. What would young Draco say? The thought nearly caused him to smile for the first time in months. For weeks now the four of them had a new routine. As eighth years they shared most classes, and he soon found that they had begun to leave a spot near them in those classes, a silent invitation. The whispers and the jeers were quieter and more discreet in Harry’s presence. For once he felt seen, and that was a blessing. Yet it was also a curse. Every day it was harder to disappear. To stare at a wall and willfully deny his own existence. To spend hours in bed, awake and unmoving. He now felt something for the classes he shared with them- with Harry: anticipation. One morning, Harry arrived alone, and, after a short pause, sat next to him at the Slytherin table. When he raised his eyebrows, Harry merely shrugged and said, “Today I’m feeling a strong sense of self-preservation.” and that was that. From that day on they sat at whatever table they wanted when they were alone. He refused to curl up and shrink against the wall when the whispers came. He instead stood strong, ignoring the chorus of  _ Murderer  _ and  _ Death Eater _ as he forged on. Yet somehow they were still often strong. Sometimes he sprinted away, losing them, and then found an empty room in which to hide. Today, however, he made the unfortunate choice of choosing a room in a section of the castle that had not yet been touched after the battle. He stood and simply stared at the destruction- destruction which he had been instrumental in creating. His breathing was becoming ever more ragged, and he found that the world seemed to be spinning. Gasping for breath he stumbled across the room to the window, which he threw open and leaned against, his head thrust out the window, bracing his body against the sill.  Birds flew in the sky, and he watched them enviously, as if wishing he could leap from his place and fly away, become nothing more than a speck in the sky. Birds were free of this guilt and this fear. This knowledge that he was all that they claimed him to be. An indeterminate amount of time passed, perhaps a minute or several hours, someone cleared their throat behind him. Standing awkwardly in the center of the room was a gangly, green eyed, messy haired boy. 

***

Harry hadn't meant to witness it. He had merely been looking for an empty place to think. He was tired of interacting with people who expected him to be a hero when he was struggling with his classes and when, in everything he did, he was so inadequate. The previous day in potions he had dropped three bottles of ingredients in potions after earning a 21% on his latest quiz. He could practically feel his professors’ disappointment at his lackluster performances in class and on his homework. He was trying, but the more he failed the less inclined he was to make an effort. He felt directionless, a boat set adrift at sea, following where the waves directed it, aimlessly. He wasn’t sure what he wanted. Perhaps he wanted nothing at all. He was attempting to find a place to mull it out away from prying eyes when he heard the sound of someone gasping down the hall. Curious, he followed the noise to a positively destroyed room, still bearing the signs of a battle months gone. It was halfway through the year and still the castles reparations were incomplete. Across the room, using a window sill for support, was a horrified looking Draco Malfoy. On the floor separating them was a smear of dried blood, which he approached. Staring at a dried blood stain on the floor, he could not help but consider what horrific thing potentially happened here. Bile rose in his throat and he swallowed it back, making a sound as he did. The blond turned, startled, tense, yet relaxed slightly at the sight of him. He looked sad, his hair slightly overgrown over hismeloncholic eyes. He seemed to know not what to say and for a moment they merely regarded each other. Finally Draco asked, “Do you ever feel as if your life is divided into a before and an after?”


	5. Chapter 5

Harry was taken aback, and responded after a pause with 

“I don’t think I really experienced a before. For me there was only ever me and Voldemort. He was my destiny. Now that it’s over and he’s dead it’s as if i've lost my only purpose in life. I’m the boy who lived twice over and that should mean something. Here I am though, taking life one day at a time because anything else is overwhelming. What kind of hero am I? Hell, but maybe there is a before and after for me. Maybe my before was my whole life, and now here I am, a hero with no discernable direction. I fulfilled my destiny, what now?”

Draco surveyed him with pale grey eyes, slowly taking in the sight that was the once-great Harry Potter.

“You know, Potter, maybe if you spent less time wallowing in your self pity and more time actually  _ trying  _ to decide your future you’d actually accomplish something. People died, you know, but they didn’t die  _ for  _ you. They died in an attempt to defeat an evil that had crept into society, whispered into everyone’s ears, an inequality that’s always been present. They died for  _ change _ and you could have too. Do you really think that just because the battle is over the war is too? Don’t be an idiot. Life isn’t suddenly good. Someone has to step up and make changes for good. Many people are expecting that person t be you.”

He paused for breath as Harry stared at him, his mind racing as he considered the future that Malfoy was offering. He wanted to shout, maybe cry, do  _ something _ or say something meaningful in response, but all he could manage was,

“So it’s Potter again, is it?”

Suddenly, Draco’s face transformed from an expression of incredulity to one of slight amusement. 

“For fuck’s sake! I’m trying to give you some advice here and your only response is to how I address you. Merlin, you really are as thick as you seem, aren’t you?”

“I-”

“I’m trying to tell you that you're considered the hero of the war! You could do anything, anywhere! Stop sulking about and punishing yourself for things that aren’t your fault!”

Harry offered a sardonic smile as he stated, 

“That’s incredibly ironic coming from you.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“It means,  _ Malfoy,  _ that you can act as high and mighty as you want, but at the end of the day you’re still sulking about because you feel bad for yourself!”   


***

Draco couldn’t resist asking the question any longer. He had wondered for so long, and now and it burst from him before he could stop to consider Harry’s exclamation, “Why did you do it?”

“Do what?” Harry was taken aback.

“Testify for me. You didn't have to, I-”

Harry interjected “You and your mother, you saved my life. I could never have succeeded without your help.”

“But we were hosting the Dark Lord in our house! I was a sworn Death Eater for Merlin’s sake!” 

“Did you take the mark because you wanted to?”

“IT DOESN”T MATTER! I STILL JOINED I STILL STOOD BY AND WATCHED AS HE TORTURED AND MURDERED PEOPLE! I HELPED! I  _ AM _ A MURDERER!”

Harry was shocked. “You were fighting with him because you were scared! Because he threatened your family. I sat and watched people suffer! I hurt people too! It’s my goddamned fault that all these people died!”

“No it isn’t.”

“It certainly isn’t yours!”

“Then why do I think it is?”

“Survivors guilt.”

“I think you’re talking about yourself, Potter”

“So it’s Potter again, is it? I think, given that we’re friendly with each other, we should address each other by our first names, Draco.”

“Of course you’re the first to concede P- Harry.”

Harry’s laughter bounced off the walls, a truly happy sound at odds with the tone of the room. “What exactly am I conceding Draco? And how did you manage to turn  _ this _ into a petty argument?”

“So that’s your official concession then?” Draco inquired, sitting on the sill of the window and leaning back while considering him lazily.

“No! What are we even- oh never mind. You’re coming to dinner tonight, yes?”

“My, what have I done to merit an invitation from Mr. Harry Potter himself?”

“Sod off Mal- Draco.”

A smile, the first legitimate smile he’d smiled in what felt like years spread over Draco’s face. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I realize this chapter is incredibly short. I apologize for that, but I feel like the emotional conveyance here is important?I don't know, I've been having serious writers block lately so I'll add to this later but this is it for now. Hope you guys are well!

To Draco the best part of his time spent with Harry was how incredibly normal he felt. He felt like he had some sort of hope for the future, like he could just relax, talk about things that didn’t matter, actually feel things like anyone would. Talking to him was like breathing after a prolonged period of silently suffocating. It was the way each word came breathlessly, desperately, from his mouth. After years of years of living performativity as Draco Malfor he was ready to be real, do the real things, the small things. Before, conversations were always weighed down somehow, false in everything said and done, filled with fear, anxiety, lust, greed, and he was shocked by the sudden clarity when he could speak without his past hanging onto every word, crowding them out until they faded to nothing. Maybe this was temporary, and maybe there was nothing substantial of their friendship, but if there was he wanted to sustain it for as long possible.


End file.
